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Who were the ad wizards behind this one?

By in Features on


This is a photo of an advertisement for Gang Bao (肛宝), or as it is called in English: 'Anus Treasure', a medicine produced by Dongjun Pharmaceuticals for the treatment of hemorrhoids. It was taken on Cuihu Nan Lu.

What's interesting is that this is not the typical case of a silly translation... the Chinese itself literally means 'Anus Treasure'. We're not experts on the inner workings of the Chinese consumer's brain, but is this the best name Dongjun could have come up with?

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Nice one! I found some eye drops in Kunming whose usage was only recomended when "the eye fucks the eye". This one was just a silly translation but don't must Chinese translators know that "fuck" is a dirty word?

[UNF]

I'm always surprised that a simple word in Chinese can apparently mean something so complicated in English. Go to google translate and type in even the most sophisticated English word, and it will sound the same in Chinese (or similar to) another much simpler word with a very different meaning.

Knowing that Chinese has very few words (fewer in fact, than any other language I am aware of) according to my linguist friend only 40,000 words, makes it hard to translate accurately, unless you are a native speaker or have one on hand to help you decipher how best to translate something between Chinese and English, or less commonly, between Chinese and any other language.

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